​​ECR Vice-President Juraj Droba has been appointed rapporteur for the opinion on "Effectively engaging local and regional authorities in the preparation of partnership agreements and operational programmes for the 2021-2027 period" during the European Committee of the Regions' Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy and EU Budget (COTER) meeting on 23 April.

Mr Droba, President of the Bratislava Self-Governing Region, will draw up the CoR's opinion on the involvement of local and regional authorities in the preparation of the Partnership Agreements and Operational Programmes, in line with the partnership principle and the Code of Conduct on Partnership. This is a key prerequisite to ensure a place-based approach in cohesion policy programming. Taking into account the evidence brought forward by the CoR study on the matter, the own-initiative opinion will enable the CoR to assess and politically comment on the involvement of local and regional authorities in the ongoing programming exercise for the 2021-2027 period, and to put forward its recommendations for enhancing their engagement.

The ECR Vice-President underlined he is honoured to be a CoR rapporteur on this topic, saying: "I will listen very carefully to your concerns about the ongoing processes in your countries and I will try to translate them into concrete recommendations on how to enhance our engagement. We want to get our voices heard and be fully-fledged partners for the government and EU institutions. It is not possible to create effective strategic documents that will drive the implementation process throughout the whole programming period 2021-2027 without a full involvement of local and regional authorities".

There will be an exchange of views on Mr Droba's opinion on 22 June 2021 in the COTER Commission, followed by adoption on the same day. The opinion should be adopted in plenary in October 2021.